"As you used to be."
"As I used to be of course; and you too, I suppose."
"Oh, you needn't kill yourself supposing."
He drew back. "What do you mean by that, Maisie?"
"What do you think I mean?"
"Well, I don't know. It sounds as if you were trying to tell me that you'd never cared anything about me."
"How much did you ever care about me?"
"I used to think I couldn't live without you."
"And you've found out that you can."
"I've had to, for one thing; and for another, I'm older now, and I know that nobody is really essential to anybody else. All the same—"